While the Duke Was Sleeping

1815 - Along the wild and untamed coast of Cornwall, smuggling is not only a way of life but a means of survival. Henrietta Morton knows well to look the other way when the free trading 'gentlemen' are at work. Yet when a notorious pirate, known as The Rogue, bursts in on her in the village shop, she takes things one step further. Bewitched by a pair of wicked blue eyes, in a moment of insanity she hides the handsome fugitive from the local militia. Her reward is a kiss that she just cannot forget. But in his haste to escape with his life, her pirate drops a letter.

When the Duke of Ashbury returns from war scarred, he realises he needs an heir - which means he needs a wife! When Emma Gladstone, a vicar's daughter turned seamstress visits wearing a wedding dress, he decides on the spot that she'll do. His terms are simple: They will be husband and wife by night only. No lights, no kissing. No questions about his battle scars. Last, and most importantly...Once she's pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again. But Emma is no pushover. She has secrets and some rules of her own....

Devlin Drake is out for revenge. Since his brother’s mysterious death, the cruel and devious Miss Bromfield has taken to spouting vicious lies, spreading vile gossip - and he vows to make her pay. How better to punish the lady than to make her his wife? A lifetime of misery is what she deserves. Knowing the lady would never accept him, Devlin devises a plan to get her to the altar - he’ll win her hand in a bet. In choosing to marry the spiteful lady, Devlin must accept he will never know true love. But his fortunes turn when he’s offered another tempting option. 

Declan, the Duke of Banbury, has no interest in ushering Rosalie Hughes, his stepsister, into society. Dumped on him with nowhere else to go, he's determined to rid himself of the headstrong debutante by bestowing on her an obscenely large dowry, making her the most sought after heiress of the Season. But Rosalie isn't about to go along with Declan's plans. Surrounded by fortune hunters, how is she supposed to find a man who truly wants her?

Life for Victoria Lacey should be perfect. And it is - perfectly boring. Agree to marry a lord who has yet to inspire a single, solitary tingle? Why, of course. Smile as though this is not the thousandth time he's mentioned hounds and hunting? It's all in a day's work for the oh-so-proper sister of the Duke of Blackmore. Surely no one would suspect her secret longing for heart-racing, head-spinning passion. Except, perhaps, a dark stranger...on a terrace...at a ball where she should definitely not be kissing a man she has only just met.

Blackmailed by his sister into giving a Christmas house party to celebrate her recent marriage, Edward Greyston, Marquess of Winterbourne, is quite certain the next few days will be an utter nightmare. Nightmares, however, are something Edward is all too familiar with. After the bloody battle of Waterloo, he has returned from the war a changed man, full of rage and guilt. Suspecting one of his house guests, the bluestocking Belinda Holbrook is about to trap unsuspecting and gullible Lord Nibley into marriage, he goes to warn him, only to get caught himself. 

When the beautiful Lady Isabella Scranford finds herself in the family way and her lover refuses to do the honorable thing, she knows her life is at an end. With a reputation for being a cold-hearted bitch, there will be no sympathy for her, only shame and ridicule. Finding that even her best - and only - friend refuses to be associated with her any longer, Isabella decides she cannot go on and makes a fateful decision. When a filthy and frightening man rescues Isabella from drowning, she begins to believe her fate has taken an even darker turn. Yet appearances can be deceptive....

It all started with a mysterious blue note sewn into a wedding dress. Something blue. I’d gone to sell my own unworn bridal gown at a vintage clothing store. That’s when I found another bride’s “something old.” Stitched into the lining of a fabulously feathered design was the loveliest message I’d ever read: Thank you for making all of my dreams come true. The name embossed on the blue stationery: Reed Eastwood, obviously the most romantic man who ever lived. I also discovered he’s the most gorgeous. If only my true-love fantasies had stopped there.

This Regency-era tale closes best-selling author Julia Quinn's popular and critically acclaimed Bridgerton series. Gregory Bridgerton has watched love simply walk into the lives of his six siblings, so he has just been waiting for his turn. When he sees beautiful Hermione Watson, he is sure he has found his soul-mate. But then Hermione's friend Lucy informs him that Hermione's heart belongs to another.

When Sophie, the least interesting of the Talbot sisters, lands her philandering brother-in-law backside-first in a goldfish pond in front of all society, she becomes the target of very public aristocratic scorn. Her only choice is to flee London, vowing to start a new life far from the aristocracy. Unfortunately, the carriage in which she stows away isn't saving her from ruin. It's filled with it.

Miss Lydia Lovell is on a quest for justice. For years, Lord Greystone’s tenants have suffered at his hands. While he abandoned his estate to rusticate abroad, poverty and illness crippled those who depend upon him. Now Greystone has come home, and Lydia is determined to make him pay. 

With the enemy growing bolder and Lady Maureen Huxley contemplating marriage to another man, Henry Thorpe, known to society as the affable Earl of Dunston, is caught in the crossfire between his mission to catch his father's murderer and his heart. Any move could exact a devastating cost. But losing the woman he loves is one price he refuses to pay.

For too long Miss Emily Parr has been subject to the whims of her indebted uncle and the lecherous advances of his repulsive business partner. Her plan to be done with dominating men forever is simple: find herself a kind husband who will leave her to her books.It seems an easy enough plan, until she is unexpectedly abducted by an incorrigible duke who hides a wounded spirit behind flashing green eyes.

A widow with a past...The last thing Victoria Barrett, the Viscountess Waters, has any interest in is romance. When the only man she's ever loved was killed, she endured an arranged marriage to a cruel man in order to survive. Now widowed, her only focus is on clearing her son's name from the charge of murder. That is until the love of her life returns from the grave. A leader of a once great agency...Nathaniel Archer, the Earl of Exeter head of the Crown's elite organization, The Brethren, is back on British soil.

The first novel in a new historical romance series from Kelly Bowen.